I've seen this film described as Mumblecore, I think it is a useful starting point to describe the film, though I think it has marked differences. Both this movie and Mumblecore movies in general concern relationships between young white heterosexual folks with relatively privileged upbringings, who are undergoing changes in their lives, or are stuck in the Doldrums hoping for the wind of change. The thing is that Mumblecore often has a warts and all approach, and a comic aspect. So you might get a boy and a girl having a conversation about the internet porn they watch. The difference with The Exploding Girl is that, largely the characters in this movie are shown in a positive light, employing a lot of discretion, and there's no attempt to tickle your funny bone, plus the movie often actually looks really good (as opposed to the hand-held shakiness of Mumblecore).
The two main characters are Ivy and Al. Ivy is studying at Ithaca, but on a break, whilst Al is a friend of many years who stays with her over the period. Al is studying evolutionary biology at college and talks about Goldschmitt's theory of hopeful monsters, which I thought was a really good metaphor for the stage of life Al and Ivy are at, i.e. going from being really good at being kids to learning how to be really good as adults. A hopeful monster is a missing link in evolution between different more steady lifeforms.
Ivy has seizures and is on medication so she has to be careful about drinking, which makes it difficult to engage with a lot of the party life and experimentation that happens at college. Al is sympathetic with this and so they spend time hanging together. Both of them have different romantic interests but seem to do have the potential to do really well together. They're both great young people, which is the thing I liked about the movie, that it showed how great they were. I liked the writing, little things like Al recording his own songs on a tape recorder, with rather overstated lyrics! I felt kinda envious at the end because I wished when I was that age I could have shown a girl the things I was proud about (and vice versa). At one point Al went to see a Zed and Two Noughts (described as an English film called Zoo) with some friends. I watched that alone at about the same age.
They're both pretty gentle and thoughtful. The main reason I wanted to write a comment about the film is that it made me feel like being a bit more gentle and thoughtful. Corollary to that was that I went out and bought a friend a doughnut. It had jam and cream in it, when I came back he said he didn't like cream.
The two main characters are Ivy and Al. Ivy is studying at Ithaca, but on a break, whilst Al is a friend of many years who stays with her over the period. Al is studying evolutionary biology at college and talks about Goldschmitt's theory of hopeful monsters, which I thought was a really good metaphor for the stage of life Al and Ivy are at, i.e. going from being really good at being kids to learning how to be really good as adults. A hopeful monster is a missing link in evolution between different more steady lifeforms.
Ivy has seizures and is on medication so she has to be careful about drinking, which makes it difficult to engage with a lot of the party life and experimentation that happens at college. Al is sympathetic with this and so they spend time hanging together. Both of them have different romantic interests but seem to do have the potential to do really well together. They're both great young people, which is the thing I liked about the movie, that it showed how great they were. I liked the writing, little things like Al recording his own songs on a tape recorder, with rather overstated lyrics! I felt kinda envious at the end because I wished when I was that age I could have shown a girl the things I was proud about (and vice versa). At one point Al went to see a Zed and Two Noughts (described as an English film called Zoo) with some friends. I watched that alone at about the same age.
They're both pretty gentle and thoughtful. The main reason I wanted to write a comment about the film is that it made me feel like being a bit more gentle and thoughtful. Corollary to that was that I went out and bought a friend a doughnut. It had jam and cream in it, when I came back he said he didn't like cream.